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why doesn't it make it invalid? there are many situations where considering the mean is so deeply distorting as to make any conclusions drawn from it either unr

why doesn't it make it invalid? there are many situations where considering the mean is so deeply distorting as to make any conclusions drawn from it either unreasonable or outright false. I think calls for greater clarity and attention to detail when doing data analysis are well-considered and we should be _deeply suspect_ of claims made based on statistical aggregates, and particularly the mean average which is one of the most distorting and lossy aggregates there is.

danso 10y ago
I don't argue that statistical analysis can be distorting, in fact, of course it can be. All data collection of any sort is at best a limited picture of what we think is reality. But that doesn't make aggregates useless because outliers exist. Just because Stanford freshman swimmer Katie Ledecky is faster than some Olympic gold medal-winning mens relay teams [0] doesn't invalidate the observation that the average man is a faster swimmer than the average woman. In the GP, I don't think he's making a "well-considered" call for "greater clarity." He's using the fact that because he lacks self-confidence, that focusing on women as a group is bullshit, as if the purported problems that women face are only substantial once it can be proven that all women are worse than all men. [0] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/katie-ledecky-is-the-present-and-the-future-of-swimming/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/katie-ledecky-is-the-pr...
- J-dawg 10y ago
  >as if the purported problems that women face are only substantial once it can be proven that all women are worse than all men. This is a total misrepresentation of what I'm saying. I'm more than fine with women being helped. What I'm saying is, don't do it in a way that excludes men with the same problem.
  - danso 10y ago
    Where does this article exclude men with the same problem? You're mad because this article focuses on what the author found interesting in her survey of professionals, a survey she conducted because she was initially skeptical of a widely-quoted aphorism from pop best-sellers like Lean In? The article's author decided to challenge that belief with a systematic analysis and she reports that it is not confidence that is the main factor. Yet you choose to interpret the problem as self-confidence because you, yourself, feel a lack of confidence. Furthermore, you accuse the author of excluding men, because you choose to see her efforts as a zero-sum game.

danso 10y ago

I don't argue that statistical analysis can be distorting, in fact, of course it can be. All data collection of any sort is at best a limited picture of what we think is reality. But that doesn't make aggregates useless because outliers exist. Just because Stanford freshman swimmer Katie Ledecky is faster than some Olympic gold medal-winning mens relay teams [0] doesn't invalidate the observation that the average man is a faster swimmer than the average woman. In the GP, I don't think he's making a "well-considered" call for "greater clarity." He's using the fact that because he lacks self-confidence, that focusing on women as a group is bullshit, as if the purported problems that women face are only substantial once it can be proven that all women are worse than all men. [0] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/katie-ledecky-is-the-present-and-the-future-of-swimming/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/katie-ledecky-is-the-pr...

J-dawg 10y ago
>as if the purported problems that women face are only substantial once it can be proven that all women are worse than all men. This is a total misrepresentation of what I'm saying. I'm more than fine with women being helped. What I'm saying is, don't do it in a way that excludes men with the same problem.
- danso 10y ago
  Where does this article exclude men with the same problem? You're mad because this article focuses on what the author found interesting in her survey of professionals, a survey she conducted because she was initially skeptical of a widely-quoted aphorism from pop best-sellers like Lean In? The article's author decided to challenge that belief with a systematic analysis and she reports that it is not confidence that is the main factor. Yet you choose to interpret the problem as self-confidence because you, yourself, feel a lack of confidence. Furthermore, you accuse the author of excluding men, because you choose to see her efforts as a zero-sum game.